"Lack of rain hardly equals good, does it?" Great. Now they were chatting about the weather. He shouldn't have trapped himself in this situation but it was his own damn fault. He should have just wordlessly given him the paper and left. That was smart. He'd do that in future. The less conversation he made, the better.

Eyeing up the paper, he wondered what Barty had been so interested in, watching his eyes run over the paper and recalling what he'd skimmed through.

Ah. Now he knew. "How's your father?"